The Governing Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union,

Having before it the case of Mr. Gali Ngothé Gatta, a member of the National Assembly of Chad, which has been examined by the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians, pursuant to its Procedure for the treatment by the Inter-Parliamentary Union of communications concerning violations of the human rights of members of parliament,

Considering the information provided by the Speaker of the National Assembly during his hearing with the Committee at its 137th session (March-April 2012), the communication dated 9 October 2012 from the Minister of Justice, forwarded by the Speaker of the National Assembly, the report of the parliamentary fact-finding mission dispatched by the National Assembly in March 2012 to examine Mr. Gali Ngothé Gatta’s situation, and the judicial decisions in the case,

Recalling the following information on file:

• Mr. Gali Ngothé Gatta, an opposition member for Lake Iro constituency, was arrested on 4 March 2012; he was tried and convicted by the Court of First Instance in Sahr on 7 March under the flagrante delicto procedure; the Court found him not guilty of complicity in killing protected animals but sentenced him to one year in prison and payment of a fine for bribery and ordered that his vehicle be impounded; four other people were convicted on the same charges, including an environmental agent found guilty of bribery;

• A parliamentary fact-finding mission was set up and commissioned by the Speaker of the National Assembly to clarify the circumstances of and reasons for Mr. Gali Ngothé Gatta’s arrest and conviction, and to verify his conditions of detention; the mission  concluded in its report of March 2012 that “the forces of law and order and the administration’s agents did not act in accordance with the law and procedure”, that “the procedure applied to arrest and convict the parliamentarian and the poachers was not lawful”, and that Mr. Gali Ngothé Gatta’s conditions of detention were bad; after having filed an appeal, Mr. Gali Ngothé Gatta was transferred to Mundu prison, where he benefitted from better conditions of detention;

• In its decision of 24 April 2012, the Mundu Court of Appeal annulled the proceedings at first instance on the grounds that they had been marred by grave flaws of procedure and ordered that Mr. Gali Ngothé Gatta and the other defendants be released and that the objects impounded be returned; the procedural flaws were as follows:

1. The absence of an offence, as warthogs are not a protected species in Chad at present, given that there is no decree for the application of Law No. 14 listing protected species or any other legal text protecting warthogs and prohibiting their hunting; the Court considered that a “non-promulgated law cannot be legally applied”, that a legal vacuum therefore existed in this respect and that, as a result, “there are no legal grounds for prosecution in this case”;

2. The absence of a flagrante delicto situation and the violation of Mr. Gali Ngothé Gatta’s parliamentary immunity; the Court considered, in the light of its examination of the documents in the file and the arguments put forward in court, that the immediacy that is characteristic of flagrante delicto charges did not exist in respect of the accusation of alleged bribery, and that Mr. Gali Ngothé Gatta’s parliamentary immunity had therefore been violated;

3. The flagrant violation of the right of defence; the Court considered that the right of defence is sacred, that Mr. Gali Ngothé Gatta had not been informed that he had three days to prepare his defence, that his lawyers’ request for a 24-hour deferral to allow them to organize his defence was categorically refused, and that the Code of Penal Procedure had been clearly violated in this respect;

4. Numerous procedural flaws, in particular in respect of the status of the prosecuting agent, the composition of the Court of First Instance and the administration and burden of proof; the Court ruled that the grounds for nullity were well-founded and concluded that “even the most basic rules of procedure were ignored by the first judges” and that the proceedings should therefore “be simply and purely annulled without examining the merits of the case”,

1. Thanks the Speaker of the National Assembly and the Minister of Justice for the information provided and their cooperation;

2. Is pleased to note that the Supreme Court closed the proceedings against Mr. Gali Ngothé Gatta when it confirmed the ruling of the Court of Appeal, putting an end to the grave procedural flaws committed by the Court of First Instance, including the violation of parliamentary immunity and the rights of defence;

3. Deeply appreciates the measures taken by the National Assembly to ensure respect for parliamentary immunity and fair-trial guarantees in a case relating to one of its members, in particular the establishment of a bipartisan parliamentary fact-finding mission and the steps taken to improve Mr. Gali Ngothé Gatta’s conditions of detention; thanks the National Assembly;

4. Welcomes the fact that the case has been resolved; decides, therefore, to close the case and requeststhe Secretary General to convey this resolution to the Speaker of the National Assembly, the relevant judicial authorities, the Minister of Justice and the sources.

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